Friday, August 31, 2012

At 2AM on the 29th
of August, five hundred striking Afro-Colombian port workers were met with riot
police brutality. Instead of protecting the legitimate voices of these workers
in their demands for national and international labor laws and regulations to
be upheld, the riot police chose to unleash violence, resulting in the serious
injury of four workers, including a pregnant woman.

After twenty days of negotiations with TECSA (Terminal
Especializado de Contenedores de Buenaventura S.A.), the company refused all points
that comprised the workers’ list of demands, even those internationally
recognized as workers´ rights: the right of freedom of association and the
right to organize, which are protected both under Colombian Constitutional Law
as well as under ILO Convention 87 from 1948; and the right to direct forms of
contracting with open-ended contracts, which should have been applied under
Decree 2025 of 2011 as part of the Obama-Santos Labor Action Plan. Given these
failed negotiations, the workers decided to strike.

The Port Workers’ Union of Buenaventura (Union Portuaria)
and its president John Jairo Castro
have been spearheading organizing efforts to get workers directly contracted so
they can have a fair working wage (it has been shown that indirect forms of
contracting result in a 50% decrease in salary). However, these efforts continue
to be met with death threats and repression, despite the fact that working conditions
in the port sector was a priority issue in the Labor Action Plan to be
addressed before the passing of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. Because
of the commitment in this Plan to address the violence faced by workers, it is
crucial that the violent actions perpetrated by the riot police against
striking workers is immediately investigated. Otherwise, it will be apparent
that our governments’ concern was only superficial and was just meant to pave
the way for the ratification of the FTA instead of making substantial changes
in labor conditions in Colombia.

Under the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement commerce
between the two countries is supposed to increase, making maritime shipping
ports a very important and strategic part of the Colombian national economy.
The pacific port city of Buenaventura sees 60% of the millions and millions of dollars’ worth of goods from the U.S.
coming in and out of the country day after day.
The workers of the port, however, cannot even afford a decent living for
themselves or for their families, let alone the bright shiny goods coming in
from the shipping containers they unload every day.

The workers of the port are mostly Afro-Colombian, and they work
under very precarious labor conditions. There have been a number of deaths in
the port due to the lack of enforced safety standards, and most of the
contracting agencies that provide employment in the ports don’t provide any
safety protection, instead burdening the workers with these costs.

The majority of the port workers can’t even address their
unfair working conditions as they are legally barred from joining a labor
union. If they do try and join a labor union they are fired and often blacklisted
from getting a job. Workers report management giving them the job on the
condition that they don’t join a labor union, and how can they say no when there
is a sixty-percent unemployment rate and Afro-Colombians are severely
discriminated against in the job market?

Sociedad Portuaria bought the port when it was privatized
back in the 90’s, and now leases out all the functions of the port to TECSA who
then subcontracts other intermediary companies to run the operations in the
port, circumventing labor rights as these companies don’t provide a framework
for trade union membership. In the meantime, length of shifts surpasses what is
permitted under labor law, and health deductions get taken from paychecks even
though workers receive no access to health care. All these abuses and exploitations have been
well-documented and even acknowledged by the Colombian and U.S.
governments.

On Saturday, negotiations are set to begin again between
TECSA and the Port Workers Union. Given the failures to comply with
stipulations in the Obama-Santos Labor Action Plan, U.S. Embassy
representatives should attend these negotiations to ensure that a peaceful and
just resolution is obtained.

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